Yes, it’s the chess event the world’s been waiting for! Later today, in the famous Botvinnik Central Chess Club in Moscow, a team of blonde players will compete in a blitz match against a team of brunettes. The games will be broadcast live on the internet (video link unconfirmed!) from 5pm, Moscow Time.

The regulations of the event are a little out of the ordinary. As well as the players being invited based on the colour of their hair, it’s also stated that:

– an essential condition for being admitted to the tournament is: light clothing for blondes, dark clothing for brunettes.

As perhaps a conoisseur of these events asked on a Russian chess site, why not the reverse?

The stated aims of the tournament are: “the popularisation of chess” and “raising the sporting mastery of female chess players”.

To that end, each member of the 10-woman blonde team will play a 5-minute blitz game against each brunette player

Varvara Saulina | photo: icce.su

(the original regulations suggest mechanical clocks and no incremement, which as Evgeny Surov noted should make it entertaining!). There are prizes both for team and individual performances, though no-one will leave empty-handed as there are also souvenirs for all.

The line-ups suggest that although the blonde players have an edge on the top boards the brunette team has more strength in depth. In fact, if you’re a blonde chess player in the Moscow area you might consider turning up, as for now the blonde team is still one short!